GM KoKyu's Jade Regent

Game Master KoKyu

Hmmm, interest seems to be waning :(
We can gloss over the roll playing in town if you like and advance the story back to the Brinestump if you like. Let me know either way :)

Sorry, I have had my mind on other things lately.

I have likewise been super busy with work and more work. :P

Time for some rules learnin' :D

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So the spider can move along its web with no check and the DC for climbing a tree is 15, which it can make easily taking 10 (+20) even when threatened. In fact, even if it couldn't take 10 the +20 is enough alone as you don't auto fail on rolled 1s with skill checks.

Also, Draeven takes a -4 to his burst attempt being the one caught in the webbing so there is no difference between a str check and an escape artist check for him at this point. (He is also suffering -4 to dex from being entangled, meaning his modifier is +0 in either case.) And generally, bursting things has a higher DC than escaping them. (Look at your net link for an example.)

Ack! I swear I read those things three times before posting the attack, but do you think it sunk in? Classic case of confirmation bias :/ As this encounter could turn deadly, I am reworking the spider's stats and fluffing it into workable shape. There are a few ideas I need to run past oKOyA though so changes will have to be retcon'd.
In the meantime, Fenra and Jeryn, go ahead with your intended posts!

Say, who has those fireworks captured from the goblins? Anyone?

@Fenra: Last post May 15. I think you're overdue for your weekly post :/

We're stuck on Fenra. To get things moving, I thought about making a ranged attack for her but she is a little light in that department. Anyone have any suggestions? In the meantime, I'm going to drop her a line.

Sorry!

My turn to hold things up :( Soke sensei is in town and I won't have time to post for a day or two. Will try to get something up tomorrow, if not Thursday for sure!

I have *Bumped* the wizard. I only have his UofA email though - hope it is still current :/

It sure is! Sorry have been busy with work and new house (it's like a second job!). Will try to be better.

Given my history with starting combat, I'm not sure if I've done this one right either. The last few posts indicated that Draeven and Rennyn were on the porch. Jeryn, being absent so far, has been left on the path while Fenra has indicated that she was investigating the bedroom. The creatures have emerged from the shed to the north and their appearance has triggered initiatives to be set. Perception checks were made (see spoiler) to detect them as well as notice other items. I'm content with starting as is, but welcome insights to anything that I may have missed...for example, were initiatives rolled too early?

I've been thinking about how this was set up and have opted, especially since Jeryn's last post was quite some time ago, to move Jeryn with the rest of the group. He really should have posted something in the last month :/ and it is reasonable to assume he would stick with the group. Where exactly he should go is the hard question and I'm going to leave that up to one of you - I can't be trusted ;)
Unless anyone has some last minute suggestions, everything else will stay the same.

Given my history with starting combat, I'm not sure if I've done this one right either. The last few posts indicated that Draeven and Rennyn were on the porch. Jeryn, being absent so far, has been left on the path while Fenra has indicated that she was investigating the bedroom. The creatures have emerged from the shed to the north and their appearance has triggered initiatives to be set. Perception checks were made (see spoiler) to detect them as well as notice other items. I'm content with starting as is, but welcome insights to anything that I may have missed...for example, were initiatives rolled too early?

I don't see their stealth roles... :P

I will be on vacation for the next 2 weeks. I will do my best to post when possible from my phone, but if I am holding up the game please DMNPC me.

GM Kokyu

Since our Kingmaker seems to be on some sort of strange curse would it be possible for Kenan to reappear? Pending an opportunity for you to insert him?

@Kenan: I can't think of a logical way to pop you in at the moment, but if you are still around when the group heads back to Sandpoint, then by all means :)

I will keep watching. :)

My father in-law passed today, I'm going to take a couple days away from the game. In the mean time, feel free to post all remaining actions for round 8.

My condolences to you, Clara, the kids and the rest of your family. Will you be traveling to New York?

My condolences as well to you and your family Chris.

Thank you all for your patience and thoughts. I know I said I'd be back and I will try to start posting today but sadly this isn't over for us.

Really sorry Chris. Please take as much time as you need.

Rennyn leveled.

I assume average HP at all levels after 1st? Or max? :)

What about Hero Points? Are we using them? Are you awarding them at level up and/or for special rewards?

Highlights: Divine Grace and Lay On Hands. Added Unchained extra skill points to Craft (weapons) and Craft (armor).

Draeven leveled.

Highlights: Combat Style (archery) chosen. Bonus Feat (Rapid Shot). Unchained extra skill points added to Profession (herbalist) and Profession (trapper).

Lets go with average HP and we are still using Hero Points, awarded on leveling, max 3.

Jeryn leveled! He can speak celestial now, woohoo! Average hp? I get 1d6 + 1 -do I select 3 or 4hp?

4+1=5

Ok so I select the 4 for the d6, awesome. When I try to put in the 2 extra skill points, hero lab tells me I have overspent - is there a way to over-ride that?

On the "Adjust" tab. Under the "Other Adjustments" click on "Add a new Adjustment". Select "Skill Points/level" and then change it to +2.

No way to do that on ipad eh? I found the 'pathfinder unchained - background skills' but it says I don't have the license to add that ability :(

I don't know, is HL different on the ipad? I don't see why you wouldn't have the "Adjust" tab. You might not be able to see it due to a limit of the screen size and number of tabs. There might be a way to choose which tabs are displayed.

And yes, you need to purchase extra data packs to access additional content.

Thought I'd wait for Jeryn to post for Round 2 before moving on...unless someone would like to Bot him.

I'm waiting for a group consensus - other than Rennyn and Draeven as they are being run by the same player :P Sorry oKOyA.
Jeryn, can you chime in and help Fenra off the fence? Swamp or Walthus'?

Oh good lord. You can't be serious.

Wow sorry. I had been checking the thread daily and had assumed we were headed to walthus'. I really thought that was the plan and didn't realize you were waiting on me to confirm

Sorry for not posting I have been dealing with a bit of a personal medical issue and it has been causing me some stress and making it difficult to focus. That with the holidays put me behind on a bunch of things.

Again sorry to all.

*taps the mic* Sooo, its pretty straight forward housekeeping/roleplaying from this point - the rest of you CAN decide what to do next while Rennyn is away....

PLEASE add any treasure listed below to your character sheets:

Rennyn - potion of CLW, Whisper Shrike (broken), masterwork cold iron katana (destroyed),
Draeven - potion of CLW, potion of CMW, masterwork chain shirt
Kenan - potion of CLW, potion of CMW, potion of restoration
Fenra - potion of CLW, potion of restoration
Jeryn - potion of CLW, potion of restoration, wand of identify (19 charges)

Each of us also gets: 784 sp, 84 gp

[Magical Ring yet to be identified]

The following is to be sold upon return to town:

Jade and Cherry Wood chest (250gp)
11 Desnan candles (5gp each)
4 Skyrockets (50gp each)
Fine Jewelry (560gp)

Sorry guys, life is getting in the way at the moment. I have part of the next post floating around in my head but I need to sort out some details first.

In the meantime, the strain/injury rules have been bothering me and so I'd like to open some discussion about adjusting them. At the current rate that the group is sustaining 'injury', I fear you will never get to use those potions ;) Here is why I think this is. Under the current strain rules, the possibility exists of a player being nickled and dimed with strain damage (without suffering criticals) all the way down to 1 HP, only to walk away not only victorious (this is what heroes are supposed to do) but also completely unharmed after a few minutes rest. Doesn't this sound strange? What am I missing?
What I am proposing is increasing the amount of time it takes to 'recover' from strain injury and add in some heal and herbalist checks to speed up recovery (this ties in to Draeven's profession which I'm hoping to expand on down the road). Just how much time? I suggest strain be felt for the rest of the day unless treated with a heal/herbalist check or the player gets 8 hours of rest (this can be interrupted rest providing no further injury is sustained in which case the clock is reset).
The DC for such checks needs some working out but here is what I'm thinking - half of the PC's normal hit points. For example, for a player with 20 HP normally, who suffered X points of strain and seeks treatment, the DC for that treatment is 10. Taking 10 or 20 is permitted. As long as a PC with either skill is nearby, this should not affect the current strain/recovery period. It will if anything add to the role playing side of things. However if there is no one skilled nearby, the strain injury will stay until 8 hours of rest has been completed. As the levels and HPs increase, the DC will become more difficult, however as this is a possible house rule, the DC could be capped at some point or we can create DCs by percentage of strain to HP inflicted.
Why a herbalist check? There are hundreds of natural remedies out there in the form of balms, teas, crystals, massage therapy, chiropractic or even acupuncture...my Chinese herbalist is a good example of someone proficient in most of these skills. Rather than create separate professions for all of these different therapies, I'm ok with wrapping all of these into one - Herbalist.

I'd also like to propose using a marker of sorts to signify at which point strain manifests into injury. This removes the nickled and dimed PC scenario. Taken from another angle, if a PC has been strained for most of his HP and the battle is still far from over, he can't call for a time out to rest up, nor can he down a potion to recover all that strain. Placing injury damage sooner could allow for the use of potions to keep him in the fray. For simplicity, we could set the marker at the half way point. So in the case of a player with 20 HP normally, once that player receives more than 10 points of strain, any further damage is treated as injury damage which can be treated in the middle of battle either magically or through potions. Criticals and failed saves remain as normal.

We can try using both or just one of the above, but it really depends upon how the discussion goes... it may just stay as is. Over to you!

Personally (I have talked at length with Chad about this in the past) I am against making the rules for damage even more complex then they are now. I am not a big fan of the strain rules as they are now, making them even more complex to me seems to be adding unnecessary complexity.

My 2 cents worth.

Thanks for the input Kenan. It didn't occur to me that this would make things overly complicated. There's already a lot to figure out, it seems to fit in - but I guess that's your point. And with my GMing style keeping it simple is probably wise. Perhaps making the encounters more difficult... :P
Anyone else?

I really do not understand the opposition to the strain/injury HP variant rules. At its most basic, it is free healing, plain and simple. This frees up "healer" classes to use their spells for more interesting things. This reduces the dependency on items like wands of CLW. This means that the party is able to spend more time of the day adventuring as they will not run out of HP or spells as easily/quickly.

What it doesn't mean is that combats are any easier. Most groups will spend the resources to heal up any significant damage before moving on to the next encounter anyways. The strain system just changes how that is accomplished. When the party runs out of the ability to heal damage, they generally "quit" or in other words "the 15 min adventuring day".

If the DM wishes to "push" the party harder, then encounters need to push the pace sometimes and not allow the rest and refit time needed to remove the strain damage. (For example, when Draeven asked to take a moment after the skeletons, I fully expected to be denied rest and refit by the arrival of the big bad skeleton.)

I also like the flavor of these rules as I strongly dislike people's tenancy to describe every hit as armor rending, bone breaking, flesh ripping, arterial severing, physical damage. Under the strain rules, most HP damage is bumps, bruises and scratches, leaving actual injuries to the final blows, crits and failed saves. I find this much more "realistic" and believable.

And what is the "cost" to us as players? Having to track 2 numbers instead of 1. Big whoop. :P

HP: 20-5s-3i = 12

But hey, if you want to go back to spending a bunch of gold on wands and potions, turning clerics/oracles/etc into heal-bots and stopping the story after every 4 encounters to allow the fighters to heal and the spell casters to replenish their spells... :/

Sending in the bad-ass but not so bad-ass skeleton right away would have been my choice however the AP said different.
Having slept on it, re-read the strain rules and then scratched my head a lot, I think it is those very descriptions: the armor rending, bone breaking, flesh ripping, juicy arterial severing, physical mayhem and gore that I'm missing and am keen to use. It feels limiting to have to stick to bumps, bruises and scratches as part of the fluff. Now that I've been reminded why I went with the strain variant rules, I see I will have to pull up my socks a bit more to keep my fluffy descriptions full of it.
But, before I put this to bed, let me ask for verification on using potions etc. to remove strain. What is the consensus?

You are the GM. You don't have to follow the AP without question. You aren't always anyhow are you?

Magical healing heals injury damage first but does heal strain damage. Not sure what the confusion is here.

I am curios to know if any other treasure items are unaccounted for. For example, who has the mystery box Chris mentions?

I want to be clear here. I am not against the strain rules and am not saying that I like the original rules more or less then the strain rules. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I just do not want to be adding more tracking etc. I am just not smart enough for that.

My suggestion, is that if you want to make the strain rules more challenging make it that you have to have an actual rest period (say an hour or half hour etc) to recover. That would prevent situations like the last fight. Where we are in a fight tired and strained but we magically are perfect for the next bad guy. Just my 2 cents.

What about channeling, does it remove strain?
I was pretty sure you forgot about the box, thus the reminder :) Fenra had made a chart of sorts waaay back, perhaps now is a good time to revisit that and troll the thread for items...we can rule that items not listed in profiles was held in safe keeping at the Rusty Dragon.
It is already in the rules for the GM to set times for resting. I may massage those times, how does 1 minute per strain point sound?

What is this onerous tracking you keep referring to? The simple addition and subtraction of 2 numbers from your HP total?! You aren't smart enough for that?! Give me a break. :P

If you can't handle that how do you calculate things like to hit rolls with all the various additions and subtractions due to conditions, feats, spells, etc? Your objection seems silly given the multitude of actually complex systems and number tracking required to play.

Upping the time required (or making it 1hp/min) undermines the entire reason for the variant rules. You oppose extra tracking duties but happily add more by requiring a defined time required, one longer than a loosely defined "couple of minutes". The longer rest time also means that all of the issues the rules were meant to alleviate return. The group either needs to expend limited resources (spell slots that could be used for more interesting things, or wands and potions purchased) or stop the story while we stand around waiting for the HP to return.

What is the first thing that happens after a fight under the normal rules? Who needs healing? I do! Alright how much? I'm down 15 HP. Ok, here is 1,2,3 hits from the wand. That puts you back up. Good. Ready to go!

And under that system, you are required to track even more things. Gold spent on wands and potions, who is carrying which items, charges on wands etc. Many of those things end up being hand-waved or poorly tracked so why bother with it?

Do you normally enter new combats with significant carry over damage? You do not. We are "magically" ready for the next fight pretty much all the time anyhow.

And I am opposed to requiring a fellow player to expend most of his/her energies healing HP so that other players can have all the fun instead of using her/his abilities to increase their own enjoyment.

It occurs to me that I don't recall you ever playing a cleric, and also recall you saying you don't like to, likely due to the heal bot factor I suspect.

Neither of you has come out and said it directly, but your opposition seems to be that you think that the strain rules are "too easy", but as stated, it makes no difference in combat where it matters. The stuff outside is just book keeping.

We didn't stop the goblin fort fight every few minutes to rest and refit cause it didn't make sense story wise. And I don't expect to get rest time after each encounter. That is already in the hands of the GM adjudicate and adjust for difficulty.

And Chris, if it heals HP? Then it heals strain! I'm sure you know how I feel about your 1hp/min.

Got to go to work....

I remember my first live game since returning from overseas. I played a monk alongside a cleric named Helios the healbot. He'd neglected to do his duty during a battle with a troll (I think) and my monk got squished. I have played cleric's regularly ever since just to make sure my character doesn't die because the party's medic forgot to heal his fighters in the middle of combat. I still have two clerics in action...kind of, not sure about one campaign.
Before this goes any further, I'm going to slam the lid down on this strained can of worms and buy another thesaurus :)
And to clarify, I'm not the one who is going to troll the PBP for forgotten treasure...tracking $$ and magical items is your job :P